DUBAI 9 March 2019: Paras Shahdadpuri, a veteran in India-UAE business scenario has taken over as the President of Business Leaders Forum (BLF) – UAE from March 1 from Dr. Ram Buxani, who led BLF for the year.
Shahdadpuri brings in wealth of expertise to hone the forum.
BLF was set up with at the initiative of India Trade & Exhibition Centre m.e.with the support of the UAE Ministry of Economy and the Indian Embassy & Consulate General of India in UAE with the core agenda to boost cross-border investment and engage the public and private sector for a shared vision and growth.
Business Leaders Forum’s exploration of NRI investment in key Indian states was just a starting point as part of its build-up of its flagship event namely the India-UAE Partnership Summit, which led to the signing of Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Andhra Pradesh Economic Development Board (APEDB).
Under the MoU, the Andhra Government will accelerate investment into various thrust sectors. The MoU targeted projects worth up to Rs100 billion in Andhra Pradesh in partnership with the state government to spur growth and explore new investment opportunities in key economic sectors i.e. Tourism, Hotels and Resorts, Education, Food Processing, IT, Industry, Affordable Housing, Defense related production etc.
The Consul General of India Vipul in his address said “BLF has been initiated to compliment and augment the engagement and investments between private investors and the Governments of India and UAE. BLF has played a vital role in achieving this objective since inception.”
UAE-India relationship has entered a vibrant growth phase and the bilateral trade is expected to exceed $100 billion by 2020. Various recent initiatives by both the governments like the bilateral currency swap agreement between India and UAE will reduce the dependency on hard currencies like US dollar and will further simplify the ease of doing business.